As an industry, we like to see ourselves as marketing companies, sometimes more than as radio broadcasters. Many “radio” companies actively offer internal marketing, social media management or website development to their clients. At the same time, they’re not always as diligent about marketing their own products. Here are three recent examples of Hip Hop stations that are trying – and sometimes failing – to move their listeners to new locations.
Charlotte
Radio One swapped the FM locations of their Hip Hop and Sports stations this week. If you were attempting to listen to Sports WFNZ on Monday, you were left lost as “The Block” moved to its 102.5 frequency and nobody failed to communicate what was happening.
@wfnz I'm a daily listener and have been since I moved to the area in 1999. As I see in other tweets, no one knew what was going on today not be able to listen on 102.5. You owe an explanation to your listeners. Period. I can't get reception on 610.
— Steve Stout (@Skroutyboy) February 28, 2022
102.5 wfnz playing songs instead of sports radio for anyone else? Been like this all day
— Garrett T. (@longfellowT) February 28, 2022
@wfnz did you stop broadcasting on 102.5 FM?
— Granville Townes (@QCtoConcord) February 28, 2022
It would not be until the following day when WFNZ reappeared on the stronger 92.7 signal and began promoting its move on-air. Which is more than the new “102.5 The Block” has done. With a newly promoted web domain that does not yet work, and one single Instagram post to promote its move, listeners to either station were not given any prior warning that a move was taking place.
Let’s say that The Block’s January 2022 cume of 101,300 is a 100% accurate depiction of how many listeners the station has right now, now between the three big social media platforms the Block has a total of 44,660 followers. Now lets subtract duplicates, former listeners, those outside Charlotte, bots, and relying on third party algorithms that don’t show every post to every person, how many do you think are actually aware the station moved? Could the number be closer to the 18 likes the one Instagram post about the move got?
It takes weeks of repetition to make listeners aware of a change yet Radio One seems to be banking on listeners just magically knowing that it’s now on a new frequency?
Seattle
iHeartMedia has definitely gotten the weeks of repetition part down for its upcoming change in Seattle. As of this writing, 93.3 KUBE is on day 12 of running a shadowcast of CHR “Hits 106.1” KBKS. But in this case is it asking too much for its listeners to retain?
Between nearly every song is either a jock or sweeper telling listeners to “reset their preset” to 106.1 or morning host Jubal Fresh trying to make listeners aware of his show in the case they weren’t aware he left Hubbard CHR “Movin 92.5” KQMV and then joined KBKS in 2020.
And for those looking for the former Hip Hop brand? At the front end of every stopset, a sweeper starts with the following, “Looking for KUBE 93.3, you can hear KUBE 93.3 on KUBE 93.3 HD2 on your smart speaker and the iHeartRadio app.” This is what you currently see if attempting to search for KUBE on the app:
The first shows the current station logo and will bring you to what is currently airing on the primary 93.3 signal. The second has a new logo that is unfamiliar to listeners, but will bring them to the new HD2 based format. In a brief survey of radio professionals, four out of the seven people we showed this to expected the first to bring them to the “KUBE 93.3” Hip Hop format because the logo said “KUBE 93.3”.
Meanwhile many listeners are still confused after nearly two weeks. None of the station’s airstaff has commented on the change, yet have continued to post from the station’s studio or station events yet ignoring every comment about the fate of the station or their show.
Chattanooga
Did you know Audacy Hip Hop “Real 96.1” W241AF/WUSY-HD2 Chattanooga moved to HD2 only last November? Even I, as someone who digs deep for format changes, was unaware of the change until this past weekend when we were made aware of the new operator of the translator beginning to promote its arrival on the signal. Were you to go to the website, stream, or social media accounts of the Hip Hop brand you would still see it promoted as “Real 96.1” despite not being on the signal since at least Thanksgiving weekend. Not one post promoting that its is now branded on air as “Real 100.7 HD2” and could still be heard there.
Nor was there anything ahead of time directing listeners to find the station moving forward there or on Audacy’s app.
If a brand does not matter to the operator at all, then why is it being retained in some form in the first place? We cannot have our cake and eat it too anymore. With plenty of other audio platforms giving listeners options, a station just packing up and moving without trying keep them basically tells the listener (and its advertisers) we don’t care about you. You cannot then say we can market a client’s brand when you cannot do it for yourself first.
